Saturday, 11 May 2013

Liar...Liar...pants on fire...

Why do people lie?? I think people lie for three basic reasons....1. To make other people feel better about themselves. 2. To cover their tracks. 3. To make themselves seem more important than they are.

In the first instance....it is fairly simple...its the small white lie you tell to friends, families and workmates to make them feel better about themselves. You give positive reinforcement, tell people what they want to hear, offer the advice that wants to be heard, tell it how people want to hear it, not so much how it is but how it wants to be heard.

The second instance...Someone does something stupid, so they make up a lie to cover their tracks. They try to wipe out the truth and invent a whole new scenario to help cover up the lie and hope to hell that those that matter...don't find out.

And in the third scenario.....there are those people who make up lies so that they seem more important than they are. They expand the truth or make up new truths so they sound bigger and better than they are. More like the deluxe model than the average.

I have been guilty of the first kind of lie....sometimes I have told friends or family what they want to hear...not sometimes what they should hear. I do try to be as honest as I can, and as circumstances permit. Sometimes you need to be diplomatic or sensitive to certain circumstances. This type of lie is probably the most acceptable of the three and lets face facts...everyone has lied about something or someone in their lives...I am 100% certain of that. But...I have never lied about things that happened, the way they happened, or why they happened.

As for Liar 2, if you are stupid enough to get yourself in a situation that you need to lie to people to cover your ass....then don't. Man up, be honest, make amends and try to keep your dignity intact. But please be honest. It is what the people you have wronged deserve and will make you a better person at the other end. Hindsight is 20/20 and might stop you from making the same mistake again.

As for Liar 3...I have come to abhor them....I tend to think....why lie? If it is not what happened...or the way it happened...or why it happened...then why lie?? Why exaggerate the truth?? Do you really think so little of yourself that you need to "talk things up" to make it more exciting/interesting/entertaining?? I have caught out people who have lied and not confronted them. They have lied...I know they have lied...they have become a lessor person in my eyes and I do not trust them. I am wary of them now. And some of the lies have been stupid little things. Things that really do not matter. But the fact that they have lied...it says a lot for the person they are, for their character, for their values.

Honesty is one of the most important things you can give to another person, a true gift. But until you know someone is telling you the truth, always be on the look out for a smokin' ass!